Stylometry and Automatic Attribution of Medieval Liturgical Monodies

While automatic attribution of literary text as well as stylometry evaluation are nowadays well-established research areas, much less has been done in the field of musicology. Here we present the results of the implementation of an automatic stylometric attribution technique to a corpus of liturgical monodies of medieval origin (the so-called Gregorian Chant, Old Roman Chant and Ambrosian Chant). The ‘unidimensional’ nature of the musical repertoires investigated (rhythm-free melody without accompaniment) allows the adoption of a known method based on a pseudo-distance between frequency-vectors of n-gram of consecutive symbols. Finally, we show that some specific features of musicological interest inside the three liturgical families can be naturally extracted using a statistical analysis of n-gram distributions. The results presented show that a quantitative approach is well suited to support and accompany the investigation of refined problems in musicology

Availability-driven optimal design of shared path protection in WDM networks

The success of the Internet has led many activities to be highly dependent on the good quality of the service that the network can provide. Failures can be very disruptive if systems without enough backup resources are in place. In this paper we propose a new way of determining how many backup resources must be provided to guarantee a given level of availability to critical services in the core of the network. The biggest impact of this work lies in how network providers design and deploy their infrastructure

hERG1 Channels Regulate VEGF-A Secretion in Human Gastric Cancer: Clinicopathological Correlations and Therapeutical Implications

Purpose: hERG1 channels are aberrantly expressed in several types of human cancers, where they affect different aspects of cancer cell behavior. A thorough analysis of the functional role and clinical significance of hERG1 channels in gastric cancer is still lacking. Experimental Design: hERG1 expression was tested in a wide (508 samples) Italian cohort of surgically resected patients with gastric cancer, by immunohistochemistry and real-time quantitative PCR. The functional link between hERG1 and the VEGF-A was studied in different gastric cancer cell lines. The effects of hERG1 and VEGF-A inhibition were evaluated in vivo in xenograft mouse models. Results: hERG1 was positive in69% of the patients and positivity correlated with Lauren's intestinal type, fundus localization of the tumor, G1-G2 grading, I and II tumor-node-metastasis stage, and VEGF-A expression. hERG1 activity modulated VEGF-A secretion, through an AKT-dependent regulation of the transcriptional activity of the hypoxia inducible factor. Treatment of immunodeficient mice xenografted with human gastric cancer cells, with a combination of hERG1 blockers and anti-VEGF-A antibodies, impaired tumor growth more than single-drug treatments. Conclusion: Our results show that hERG1 (i) is aberrantly expressed in human gastric cancer since its early stages; (ii) drives an intracellular pathway leading to VEGF-A secretion; (iii) can be exploited to identify a gastric cancer patients' group where a combined treatment with antiangiogenic drugs and noncardiotoxic hERG1 inhibitors could be proposed. © 2014 American Association for Cancer Research

L\u201cItaliana\u201d vista da un francese attraverso i veneziani

Le annotazioni di Stendhal sulle opere di Rossini e sul pubblico veneziano che se ne appassionava risultano essere una fonte antropologica e culturale di grande ricchezza per lo studioso moderno. Le considerazioni drammaturgiche con cui leggiamo oggi "L'italiana in Algeri" (1813) sono in gran parte condizionate da quei presupposti

Ma quale tenore per Arnold?

Analisi della parte vocale tenorile nell'opera "Guillaume Tell" di Rossini, in rapporto al suo primo esecutore, Adolphe Nourrit, e alla successiva storia esecutiva, con particolare riferimento alla ridelineazione del personaggio prodotta dal tenore Louis-Gilbert Duprez e al connesso mito della ideazione del cosiddetto "Do di petto"

Puccini parla dei colleghi

Le seimila e pi\uf9 lettere di Giacomo Puccini fino ad oggi rintracciate costituiscono una \u201cdichiarazione di pensiero\u201d inestimabile per ricchezza e valore, che possiamo interrogare da numerose prospettive. Una delle pi\uf9 interessanti \ue8 la sua posizione rispetto al turbinio di nuove correnti estetiche all'interno del quale Puccini si trova a vivere. Le opinioni espresse nel corso degli anni sui suoi colleghi pi\uf9 in vista costituiscono, lette in controluce, un'immagine della sua propria visione estetica sulla musica e sul teatro d'opera in particolare. L'articolo ha setacciato i carteggi pucciniani facendo emergere le dichiarazioni pi\uf9 significative, e talvolta imprevedibili, cercando di offrirne di volta in volta una chiave di lettura

Il Saggiatore musicale

Rivista musicologica semestrale di respiro internazionale (pubblicazione di articoli in cinque lingue), valutata al top nelle varie classifiche delle riviste scientifiche in ambito umanistico